OpenText ALM / Quality Center Reviews

There are many valuable features HP Quality Center has to offer, but if I had to narrow it down I would say the following for me are the most valuable:

1. QC has the ability to integrate and execute test cases with HP QTP with viewable test results.
2. QC has the ability group test cases in a hierarchical format as well as the ability to reuse test cases by calling a test.
3. The ability to integrate with MS Excel.
4. An extremely useful feature of QC is that it allows linking defects with higher level artifacts.
5. Requirements Module, Test Plan Module, Test Case Module, and last but not least, defect module and generating reports.

What makes this product very useful in improving the quality of an organization, is the fact that it has the ability to create a test script and then to write them in detailed steps. For all test case executions, we are able to generate customizable reports and charts, which is very useful for sending reports to higher management. With these great features, QC has made communicating between upper management and the QA team much easier, which gives better insights to our defect tracking and managing. This reporting is then better used for tracking the finances for the team.

There were few issues I faced while using Quality Center, but I’m sure they have been fixed in the new ALM version. One issue I have faced was that while I was importing test cases from Excel to Quality Center, it was not asking to check out the test cases but instead it would overwrite the default test cases and create a new version for it. This was not a consistent issue but it did happen a few times.

I have used HP Quality Center for about 4 years. I have knowledge on the current ALM version but personally have not used it in any projects yet.

Quality Center has a Starter Edition which is usually for entry-level quality assurance organizations and the Enterprise version (originally called Mercury TestDirector) which is for medium to larger level releases. The new release of the software is HP ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) 11 has integrated the capabilities of Quality Center Enterprise with Project Planning and Tracking, Enterprise Release Management, and Asset Sharing for requirements management through application delivery. HP ALM’s intended use is more for large and global organizations.

I’ve personally never had deployment issues.

Quality Center for the most part is pretty stable besides some common issues.

Scalability-wise, Quality Center is an awesome tool. Quality Center itself doesn’t actually place a limit on creating projects or folders. Most of it will depend on the users, servers, and hardware and not the Quality Center client itself. But the more data the user has in a specific module, makes it slower to load on the client. Most of all, it will depend on the implementation.

HP Quality Center is not a new product and has been out in the market for quite some time so there are plenty of online support and help that can be found. Quality Center forums can be found for almost any issues that can come up anytime.

Quality Center has a very intuitive GUI which makes it fairly easy to use and follow. Even if you are a beginner picking up on how to use this product will not take much time. But it can be difficult to implement as it is dependent on the size of the organization on the amount of teams. Identifying current methods of communications is critical to implementing HP Quality Center.

Quality Center can be a bit costly, but the ROI is great for all the great features you get.

Quality Center is a very powerful tool. It is not only a defect tracking tool but also a management tool. It can be used for everything from creating requirements and test plans to test creation, execution and defect reporting.

It's a business process requirement and is being used for test cases, test executions, defect locks, metrics, dashboards, etc.

In implementation projects, things work in the waterfall methodology so it's the best tool to collect all the requirements in one place to tie up into the test cases and test executions, so this solution is extensively being used in the company for implementation projects, particularly in test management activities. 

I like all the features this solution provides. It is a good stand-alone test management tool.

Pricing could be improved as it's high-priced. I don't exactly know the pricing point, but previously, I know that it was really high so fewer people were able to use it for their projects. That's the only disadvantage I could think of.

One other thing: I'm not sure if Micro Focus ALM Quality Center has this feature, or other people could be using this feature currently, but if it can be connected to any automation tool then it can pass those automation test scripts, which internally it can reflect that requirement if it passed. If that feature is there, then it's good.

If that feature isn't available, what I would like to see right now is whether it can be done manually. You can say that manually, these test cases that are linked to the requirement have passed.

If this solution, on the other hand, can be connected to an automation tool, then it can update us automatically about the test script and whether there's a link between the test scripts and the requirement, then we can say: "Okay, this requirement ran automation test scripts and it passed, and that means coverage is good."

I don't know whether this feature is currently available. If it's there, good. If it isn't, then that would probably be one last item I would be looking for which I'd like to be integrated into the test management tool.

I'm currently using the Micro Focus ALM Quality Center.

About the stability of this solution, I noticed a glitch. Sometimes if I go into any of the test cases, it will show as if it doesn't have anything, but if you click the box, it'll show the content of the box e.g. company information, steps, or expected results in those test cases. Apart from that, I didn't see any other glitches.

I have no issues with scalability because if you want more projects, you can add more projects, and if you want more texture, spaces, or cycles, you can add them. I find it good.

Currently we don't have any technical concerns on the ALM side, so no improvement needed support-wise.

The setup was a one-time thing and I didn't find it difficult.

I was able to evaluate Jira, Confluence and Xray.

We don't have any technical concerns about the Micro Focus ALM Quality Center. Probably, it's on a different piece of Micro Focus solution called MF Connect which connects the ALM to the DevOps so that's a different one.

My advice to others looking to implement Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is that using it successfully depends on the person and the project. It may not be the same for other people, but installing it and using it offers less hassle, but I won't suggest it for everybody because analysis needs to be done when using this solution for particular projects. Users need to think about their requirements and if their requirements are not being met, then this tool may be obsolete, but as a test management stand-alone tool, it's a good tool.

I've been using this solution full-fledged and I don't see any improvements which I required in this project. I started to use this product when it was in Mercury, and Mercury then went into HP, then into Micro Focus, so I'm a longtime fan of this HPQC ALM thing. But these days, things are working differently in Agile. So Agile: It works on stories and so forth, but there is no repository of requirements or any kind of history of things. There, a project comes and it works in an Agile fashion. I don't know how good this tool is when used in an Agile perspective, but I'm sure that it is a good test management tool.

I'm rating ALM based on two points. One rating is for the product. The product is good, it's great, but when compared to other products with the latest methodologies, or when rating it as a software development tool, then I'll rate it a five out of ten because there's a lot of other great tools where you can interconnect them, use them, scale them, and leverage. It all depends on the cost.

As a stand-alone test management tool, I'm giving it a nine out of ten.

If I'm trying to scale and I'm spending more money, my rating will go down. If it's able to scale with less money like Jira, Confluence, or some other tool like Xray, then scaling may be done faster with less cost to the user.

Wherever you put five out of ten, I would say to upgrade that to seven out of ten.

We have it deployed in our Data Center and it integrates with it to write a custom application on it. You have to use a sole technology, which is risky. It takes more advanced developers than someone who does JavaScript and makes web pages.

Micro Focus is selling two test management solutions, ALM/Quality Center and ALM Octane, TM, which are identical, except ones built on newer technology

The user interface is fully web-capable. It's a website, and it runs on a browser.

I like that it integrates with the Jira solutions. Similar to SmartBear TestComplete, and another solution, where they add test management into Jira. 

All of them use the same data model. You basically have a release, a cycle, and then you have requirements, you attach those to the cycle, then you have tests, and test sets made of tests. It's all the exact same thing. They got it right because everyone has copied it.

ALM is a dated application, and I am researching to see what other solutions are available.

We would like to upgrade to be more modern.

If you want to extend it, they use ActiveX which was put into a browser to go to the internet, but it never had security built into it. It is what Microsoft Office is based on.

It hasn't kept up, while others have and are adding new features and tools.

I would like to be able to use free keyword searches, where you're not just limited to SQL queries.

The software gets leapfrogged because you make a lot of investment in building something. You're selling it for five years, and meanwhile, all of the other tools are improving. Another vendor comes along to make the same thing that took you three years to build, he built it in six months.

It's all easier to make. It's always a cycle. I just look around to see where we are at in that cycle with test management software.

I would like to be able to search easier, not just do SQL queries, being able to do free keyword searches on the data. That's valuable.

I have been working with Micro Focus ALM Quality Center for a decade.

We are using the latest version.

The stability of this solution is good. We never experienced any issues with bugs, glitches, or any crashes.

We have not issues with the scalability of Micro Focus ALM Quality Center. It is a scalable product.

In a given day, we have 50 persistent users, then another day you may have 75 to 100 people with 30 users who are testers.

We have a contractor who supports us. The company's technical support, and it all goes through them. They are the middleman to us. They are on our site, and they run it.

I was not involved in the initial setup. It was set up by other people.

When I look back to four or five years ago, it would have been rated a 10, but now I think that it has 's probably fallen back to a six or a seven out of ten. I would rate Micros Focus ALM Quality a six out of ten.

I think if you look at the Gartner Magic Quadrant Reports, it pretty much indicates that as well.

I primarily use the models from Quality Center. The requirements, the plan, lab, and effects, et cetera. I use it to merge my entire cycle of debts.

One feature that is very nice that our team uses a lot is the Excel add-in. It's a tool with add-ins, extra models, that you can use to export and import data from Excel, Microsoft Excel. It's been extremely useful for us.

The solution overall is very good and very solid. It's robust.

The stability is very good.

In the world of agile, the solution needs to make testing better. They need to arrange their tests with a very high speed of tests. Quality Center is a little bit old in terms of approach. It needs to be modernized. I have to go through many cycles, et cetera, in order to register everything correctly. I need more flexibility to adapt to the new methodology of agile for Excel. That will require more speed. Currently, due to the relative slowness, takes a lot of time to use the tools very well. 

If the solution could create a lighter, more flexible tool with more adaptability to new methodologies such as agile, it would be great.

I was in contact with my support team here, and there is a new release of Quality Center for agile. That is called Quality Center Octane. However, my support team has not made it available to me yet. I was waiting to see the new version of Quality Center Octane, to see if it would have more flexibility in agile. 

I've been using the solution for about ten years now. It's been a decade. It's been a long time.

The stability is very good. It has very good capabilities. It is 99.99% stable. We haven't had issues with bugs and glitches. It doesn't crash and freeze. It's good.

The scalability of the solution is very good. If a company needs to expand it, it can.

We have about 1,000 users on the solution.

Technical support is a black box. It's not good. When I look into things on the site, it's very difficult to find the information and help I need. On a scale from one to ten, I'd say it is a five.

We tend to get support from offices based in America, and we are in Brazil. It's my understanding that there isn't a team here in Brazil. Central support may be in Honduras. I've only gotten through one time. 

They need to do better. We aren't satisfied with the level of service or the process that has to happen before we can get help.

I'm not sure how easy or difficult the initial setup is. I don't know due to the fact that the setup is done by a support team and I am on the side of the user. To set up and maintain the tools on the server is not my job. I also do not know how long it takes to deploy the product. Therefore, I wouldn't be able to comment on it effectively.

That said, to install a new station on the client-side, not the server side, is very quick.

My company is just an end-user and customer. We aren't a reseller or partner.

I'm using a variation of version 12. It may be version 12.3.

If you have a large enterprise like me (I work in a bank and there are 10,000 people who work here) and have a large setup, this solution is very solid. For a minor company that is a smaller startup of maybe 10 or 20 people, it's a good idea to use another tool that is more flexible. 

Overall, I would rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use this solution for test management purposes. For sorting set cases, testing for possible defects, executions, and so on.

Defect management is very good. It's not a lightweight solution, you can do a lot of customization with respect to the workflow. It also definitely supports the waterfall model.

Only Internet Explorer is supported. That is a big problem. They don't support Chrome and Firefox and so on.

The browser limitation is the biggest problem —  nobody wants to use IE in this world.

The browser issue is a big deal because it doesn't work on Mac. That's a game-changer, but now, I assume they have come up with a giant tool, ALM Octane.

It would be great if they brought the waterfall model with ALM Octane, or created a new interface as such. 

I have been using ALM for roughly 10 years.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is a very stable solution.

The technology itself is a little outdated — previous generation technology. Patching and other things can be a little difficult. 

It's also very scalable.

Regarding technical support, one word comes to mind: terrible.

I don't expect everybody to know everything, but there have been instances when I had to tell them the answer and they'll tell it back to me; however, of course, there are some knowledgeable people working there too. Sometimes it's very good, sometimes it's very bad — there is no in-between.

The initial setup was a little complex. For example, compared to installing Oracle applications, ALM is straightforward and easy.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is very expensive. Personally, I think that it's too expensive, but I don't have another tool to compare it to.

For anyone who supports the waterfall model, this is a great tool. I would not say that it's not a good tool. It is a great tool for managing processes and tests. It's very stable, but you will see some glitches here and there — that's inevitable. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give ALM a rating of seven.

I use 80 to 90 percent of the product's features. 

• It has a good response time.
• The AI and functionality interface are useful. 
• The task management reporting has a lot of out-of-the box uses.

Certain features are lousy. Those features can drag the whole server down. There are times that the complex SQL queries are not easy to do within this solution. 

Micro Focus ALM needs to bring the features of this ALM into the newer version of Octane. 

ALM can scale and is very impressive. It can support thousands of users with a very low amount of resources. It can easily manage very big projects within thousands of people at a time. It allows and disables scale, supporting front-end operations and task management at different levels. 

The initial setup is quite easy, if you know what you are doing. 

It allows us to keep our costs low. I do not want to pay beyond a certain point for this solution.

The most valuable features of ALM are in the new upgraded version of 12.53. We're able to more accurately document our test results, our actual versus our expected results, with the new screenshot functionality. That is the most useful part of the tool for me right now. Of course, we use it as our testing repository, and it's basically the way to show the work that we do as QA testers, and to have a historical view of those executions.

Because we can trend repeatable results, we can look at trends of things that are continuously working well, and things that continuously get broken within the software development process. So it helps us improve our testing quality.

Sprinter, I think, is a good part of this ALM tool, but it has some limitations for us. Based on the type of software we use - we have some web based applications and also some power built applications - not able to capture all the objects, or the way that we develop our software. We're not able to use it as much as we would like to. So Sprinter would be something I would like to see better integrated with the different types of technologies used by the software companies.

I'd like to be able to improve how our QA department uses the tool, by getting better educational resources, documentation to help with competencies for my testers, to make sure they understand how to use the tool. Do they really understand how they're using it? Why they're using it. So, for me, that would useful.

For us, so far, it's been pretty stable. Because we have such a ginormous amount of historical data, we've had a little bit of an issue with performance. We were working on copying and creating a new database for that because we have products that we use, FDA regulated products, and we can't get rid of those testing results. So we have to keep them for the life of the product.

So of all of the things that we've experienced, or had issues with, it would be the amount of data we're able to store, because we have to keep everything.

That would go to what I just mentioned above. We're looking at ways to improve being able to capture more results without impacting our products.

I haven't used tech support because we have a couple of different layers within the business unit. So I have people that I can go to, and then those people go to tech support. So it is utilized on a different level, just not by me.

When selecting a vendor to work with, the most important criteria are flexibility, availability, and scalability.

I would say it's a good tool. You have to invest the time into learning the different ins and outs of the tool, and become educated on it. I think it can scale as much as you allow it to, but you have to put the time into learning what it has to offer.

Cross project customization through template really helps to maintain standards with respect to fields, workflows throughout the available projects.

Traceability feature really allows you to maintain linkage between all the test artifacts, starting from Releases>Requirements>Test Coverage>Test Execution>Defects. ALM allows you to maintain complete end-to-end process.

Business Views has really come in handy for all users, as different kinds of reports can be created very easily and published to all the stakeholders.

Synchronizer add-in has allowed us to integrate Microfocus ALM to other third-party tools like JIRA, ClearCase and ClearQuest, and helps to eliminate the isolation between these tools.

ALM has brought great collaboration among the team members.

Helps to maintain all the test artifacts in one place as a central repository where all teams can contribute and collaborate with each other.

Dashboard

• Defect ageing reports need to be included as built-in
• Availability of built-in report related to Defect Removal efficiency
• Availability of built-in report for calculating Defect Density
• Availability of built-in report for end-to-end traceability
• Availability of reports specific to Automation projects.

Management- Libraries

• Ability to include Test Set data in Libraries so that Test Set execution can be transferred to other projects using Library functionality

Test Lab

• Ability to upload Test Execution results from Excel to HPE ALM

Test Plan

• Ability to maintain Manual and Automation projects in single HPE ALM project
• Composite execution of manual and automated scripts would be helpful

Defects

• SLA-related ability for defect module where ALM would send automail to stakeholders for the defects which have not been updated in a long time

I have been using the solution for 10 years now.

ALM is quite a stable application. We had some issues during the initial setup but it's been stable since, due to right level of competency/expertise we have in the organization to maintain the ALM setup.

No scalability issues.

Technical support is not that great. We really need to push to get HPE support to provide a resolution for technical issues. Tech support needs to improved now, as it has deteriorated badly.

HPE ALM was our first choice.

Initial setup was not that complex.

HPE has always been flexible in terms of pricing and licensing, but we are a bit concerned with the fact that it is now in the hands of Micro Focus and things may change.

No.

Think about the below before you start implementing this product:

• What’s the total user base you are expecting to on-board?
• How many projects/countries/entities are going to be on-boarded to the platform, and then design the hardware configurations accordingly.
• Do you have any other tools which need to be integrated with this product? Is there any ready-to-use integration already available or do you need to build it from scratch?
• Note that this product does provide the ability to control user access and provides security.
• Talk to your network security team and check if anything specific needs to implemented along with this product, like dual factor user provisioning, reverse proxy, TLS 1.1, TLS 1.2. Does this product support all these?
• Check the organization plan in terms of roll-out of latest Operating Systems, Browsers. Does this product support those latest OSs, browsers, versions, etc?
• Hire a HP ALM administrator expert who can guide you to implement the product in the right manner.